The invention relates to an automated article handling system and more particularly to improvements over existing automated handling systems relating to the rental dispensing of consumer goods, especially copyrightable works such as cassette video tapes, laser disks, game cartridges and the like.
The popularity of purchased electronically utilizable copyrighted works, hereinafter consumer goods, in both the purchased and rental markets is increasing. Until recent times, these consumer goods, and in particular video cassettes were available only in manned video stores. These stores are expensive to operate due to significant overhead, including unit costs in labor and utilities. The unit costs coupled with long operating hours of up to 16 or more hour daily for seven days per week significantly contribute to operating overhead.
The availability of an automated video vending machine of sufficient capacity, if produced and sold economically could drastically reduce this overhead and dramatically increase consumer goods profits to the owner of such device. Such an automated vending machine with a large capacity of videos cassettes, could eliminate the costly manned stores, and, since it would be totally automated, it would operate on a 24 hour per day basis.
Several video cassette rental devices are known in the market. A typical video vending machine includes (1) a capability of receiving cash or credit from customer using a cash verification machine or credit/bank automatic teller machine card verification debit system; (2) a keypad for customer-operator to input a personal identification number and for a customer to select and identify a cassette for rental or return; (3) a display to prompt the customer-operator through the rental or return transaction; (4) an apparatus for vending, or changing the custody of the selected consumer good to and from the customer-operator; and (5) and record keeping means for recording all transaction parameters including identity of the consumer good, identity of the customer, the time, date, revenue of the transactions, etc.; (6) an apparatus for dispensing a transaction receipt to customer
Examples of such video cassette vending machines are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,414,467, 4,598,810, 4,734,005 and 4,458,802. U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,810 discloses a video cassette vending machine in which the cassettes are stored in bins that open to the front of the machine, and are directly accessible to customer-operator The video cassettes in the bins are individually locked against removal, the customer-operator selected bin allowed to open only after the customer satisfies all machine prompted tasks in his transaction. During the transaction, the video cassette tape upon rental is removed from and upon return is inserted directly into the bin.
Another type of cassette vending machine shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,810 has moveable storage bins enclosed within a machine's housing. A transport mechanism is utilized to align the moveable storage bin with an opening to deliver a cassette to a customer-operator. This same mechanism enables the return of the cassette from the customer-operator to a storage bin. U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,005 illustrates a device similar to this type of machine.
Other patent references reveal a vast assortment of patents showing similar automatic article handling systems or machines with storage systems such as file containers, security boxes and the like. Such patent references include U S. Pat. Nos. 3,297,379, 3,526,326, 3,964,577, 4,300,040, 4599,522, 4,546,901, and 4,681,504.
The mechanisms utilized in all of the above references require somewhat complex mechanical and electrical systems, tending to increase the cost of manufacturing these devices